Friday, April 7, 2017

I believe in the power of music and how it sparks
memories. I believe in the Music and Memory program that we offer at Green
Hills Community.

The earliest song that I remember from growing up is the
theme song of Josie and the Pussycats,
a mini-record that I cut out from the back of a Honeycomb cereal box. The band
was part of the Scooby-Doo show – one
of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons.

My parents
had a very extensive record album collection, a great stereo system, and we listened to the radio all the time.

When I got to high school – I would “discover” a song
and sing it before anyone else knew about it. Eventually, the song would hit
the Top 40 and I was over it – tired of hearing it and onto something else new
and exciting.

While a student at Bowling Green State University, I
fulfilled my dream by becoming a disc jockey at 88.1 FM WBGU. Garage bands were
the rage, MTV was exposing us to all sorts of exciting sounds, college radio
was king, and U2 was finally making a name for themselves. It was a great time
to tune into the music industry and WBGU-FM hosted a wide range of formats.

I began with an early morning Saturday shift playing “alternative”
music – anything that was NOT played anywhere else, like Depeche Mode, Roxy Music,
Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, the Smiths and many others of that genre.

Later, I spend two semesters playing 60s and 70s music
with a “Classic Flashback” show in which I always opened with Rod Stewart’sEvery Picture Tells a Story, which I
picked from my parent’s record collection along with tunes from Kenny Rogers
and the First Edition and Three Dog Night. Wow, did I have a great time with
that show.

During my last year at college, I took over as director
of “Jazz Afterhours,” featuring music from classic
jazz artists and more modern jazz/new age crossover artists like George Benson,
Larry Carlton and John Scofield.

Yes, I love and appreciate music. My greatest fear is
that when the day comes that I no longer recognize my family, that someone will play Top 40 tunes from 1984 thinking that I want
to relive my high school years. I. Will. Go. Nuts. if I hear Oh Sherrie from Journey or something from Madonna.

What do I want to hear? I’m so glad you asked. Here are
a few songs on my list: